For the past several months I’ve been working hard to convert a corner of our basement to a shop. Kelly and I painted the floor with two coats of 2-part epoxy paint (color, then clear coat), and then I framed, wired, dry-walled, Kelly painted (thanks sweety!), I trimmed, finished the electrical, and today I finished the suspended ceiling. Complicating each step was a multitude of plumbing and duct-work obstacles that had to be laboriously worked around. I wanted to make sure it was ready for whatever I was likely to throw at it, so I put in 2 20-amp 110v circuits, 2 30-amp 220v circuits, central vac, shop air, ventilation, and ran conduit from my future workbench location and from a wall location to my server room for network cables for my computers (for the CNC router) and phone. All that’s really left now is to build a workbench for my CNC router, computers, and reloading equipment, and then I can start moving in the equipment!

I can’t wait to have this finished up. It’s been a long time in the making, and during that time whenever I wanted to make something on the router, I sat my butt on the concrete floor on the other end of the basement for hours on end. Having a nice workbench and comfy chair is going to rock! Once things get settled, I’ll gradually work on tool and material storage as well until it’s a fully equipped, comfortable work area!

Check out more pics at http://www.chembal.com/v/projects/basement_shop/!

Shop from Door

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We had fun at the zoo yesterday!  Check out the pics at http://www.chembal.com/v/critters/zoo2010/!

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I recently finished making my own Maple LED Clock. It only took five tries! Check out all the details here!

Assembled Front View
Assembled Rear View
Working Clock
Clock and the Tools That Made It

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Well, I’ve been playing around a lot lately with various techniques to mechanically etch PCBs, and I think I’ve finally got a good method. I’ve documented it here on my site for all to enjoy.

Here’s an example of a small board I created using my CNC router. It’s just a small test board for TI’s excellent TLC5925 LED driver IC, but it demonstrates the kind of results I’m getting with my latest fabrication methods.

TLC5925 Front
TLC5925 Back

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